


99% Sure I'm Not Human

by Idhren15



Series: Idhren's Voltron Oneshots [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Foster Kid Keith (Voltron), Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Keith Knows He's Not Human, Not Canon Compliant, Oneshot, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Relationships background, Sort Of, inspired by another work, most characters background, only a small difference though, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 14:55:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18448898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idhren15/pseuds/Idhren15
Summary: Keith always knew he wasn't human.It was the little things, like the way he could see in the dark, the sharpness of his nails, the faded stripes on his cheeks.All of those and the fact that his mother was purple.Character Study of Keith, pre-Kerberos. Mostly canon compliant, except Keith knows he's part-alien.





	99% Sure I'm Not Human

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [It's Because I'm Galra, Isn't It?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17993078) by [celestialriptide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialriptide/pseuds/celestialriptide). 



Keith always knew he wasn't human.

It was the little things, like the way he could see in the dark, the sharpness of his nails, the faded stripes on his cheeks.

All of those and the fact that his mother was purple.

He only had two things of her: a blade and a faded photograph, of her and his dad holding him as a baby. His cheek-marks were much more prominent then, identical to hers, but they had faded a little with time, so all he had to do was use a little make-up to conceal them.

He couldn't remember much of his father, but he _did_ remember how important it was to hide his 'special' features. So, he filed down his nails regularly, covered the marks on his cheeks, and never let anyone see his eyes in the dark.

(They glowed yellow, apparently.)

Keith never knew what he'd do in the future. The enhanced parts of him suggested he could be something great; he quickly learned that he was faster and more agile than anyone in his class at school, but to be an athlete was out of the question. There would be too many blood tests, checking for drugs, but the doctors would find something else, he was sure of it.

(Blood tests were bad. Doctors were to be avoided.)

Besides, his circumstances didn't really set him up great. Since his dad's death, he'd been passed around from foster home to foster home, never really able to settle. It was so _hard_ to be _normal_ around them; he'd failed many times. The worse had been the last home, where the mother had stumbled across his photograph and started asking questions.

He'd punched one of his foster siblings, so they would send him away and not pry any further

(He still felt guilty about that.)

By the time Shiro came around, Keith had seriously been considering a darker path. His grades were average, but he hated school, and he didn't want to stay in his current foster home much longer. The mother was so fake; the father was borderline abusive.

If society hated him that bad, he could rebel against it.

He could stop covering up his cheek-marks. He could let his nails grow long, hard, and sharp. He could use his ability to see in the dark to pull off greater heists than normal human criminals could ever dream of.

But one day, a pilot from the Galaxy Garrison came to his school and his direction completely changed.

Everyone was excited about space; though Keith didn't show it, he was excited too.

(He suspected his mother was an alien.)

_This_ was something he could do, a future he could have! But the hope faded as everyone else rushed to the simulator, all the smart kids and popular kids and friendly kids crowding round to have a go.

He held back, because he knew he'd never stand a chance against them.

But Shiro locked eyes with him and encouraged him to try, so he did, ignoring the cold looks from all his classmates.

And when he sat in the pilot's seat, something deep within him sparked into life.

Fire burned through his body, sharpening his mind, his hands fitting comfortably around the controls, fingers welding to them as the ship became a part of him.

(It was only a simulator, but it felt like so much _more_.)

He soared through the levels, mind working overtime as he anticipated the next obstacle, moving with the ship as one.

Then his teacher's voice reached his ears and he lost concentration, suddenly overwhelmed with the need to get out of there.

He ran from the simulator to Shiro's car, turning the keys that had been left in the ignition, and slammed on the gas, his heart thundering in his ears. He didn't know where to go; he just needed to get away.

Flying felt _amazing,_ but it seemed that the cruel world wouldn't even give him that.

When the police caught up and shoved him in a cell, Keith wondered if this was his future.

But Shiro came, _again,_ for some reason he couldn't comprehend. Why would the Garrison's star pilot bother with a strange, angry foster kid?

(The anger was a front, but no-one ever realised it.)

And Shiro kept coming, again and again, until Keith was at the Garrison, breaking Shiro's records and setting his own, catching hold of the first real opportunity the universe granted him.

He kept coming, until the Kerberos mission failed.

(The anger became real then.)

Keith knew it wasn't a pilot error; Shiro was too _good_ for that to be the case. He tried to find out the truth, to confront Commander Iverson about the situation, but as words got heated, the fires inside got the better of him, and he punched Iverson.

A day later, he was standing outside the Garrison with nowhere to go.

Then he remembered: the house and shack in the desert, his childhood home. If his mother wasn't actually from Earth, wouldn't there be a spaceship she'd come in?

(He would fix it and find Shiro, then look for her as well.)

He made his way through the desert, eventually stumbling across the shack, standing lonely by itself, the house completely gone.

There was no spaceship, either.

But there was a small, leather-bound notebook, filled with his dad's handwriting.

He read it eagerly, finding unfamiliar words that only served to confirm what he'd suspected. _Voltron. Blade of Marmora. Empire. Zarkon. Galra._

(He was Galra.)

An energy in the desert called to him, so he stayed, putting together a collection of images and diagrams and the words his dad had written, all pointing to an event in the near future.

(It _wasn't_ a conspiracy board.)

Then Shiro crashed back down to Earth, one thing leading to another like nuclear fission, and he found himself standing in a castle with Shiro and three humans, on a planet light-years away from Earth.

The Galra were bad, he was told, but he knew it wasn't as black-and-white as the Alteans claimed.

His mother was Galra, and she had fought against the Empire.

There were other Galra out there, good Galra, fighting on the side of Voltron.

He couldn't bring himself to hate that part of his heritage.

(Besides, the others knew, didn't they? The castle had scanned them. He'd been in the med pods. They knew, but obviously they didn't care so they hadn't said anything.) 

(Now he was just waiting for the perfect opportunity to make _that joke._ ) 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you haven't already, please check out celestialriptide's [ fantastic fic!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17993078)  
> This fic is an expansion of that AU!
> 
> Thanks again ^-^


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